


across time and space

by haatomune



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Character Death, LiveJournal Prompt, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Romance, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 22:57:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16774615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haatomune/pseuds/haatomune
Summary: "Transcendental love: it does not matter which world or timeline we live in; we will always find each other."A writing prompt challenge dating back to 2007, from the 100_wangst community of LiveJournal; originally posted on LJ and on FF.net.  For 100 themes, the drabbles will revolve around Yuugiou characters, specifically the relationship between Mutou Yuugi and Yami no Yuugi.  Free-for-all including (but not limited to) cheesy romance, angst, mature content, character death, terrible humour, my experiments with writing styles, and sometimes a little more thinking to link the prompt to the actual drabble.





	across time and space

**Author's Note:**

> Specific chapter tags: AU, character death (non-explicit).
> 
> As always, Yu-Gi-Oh! is the intellectual property of Takahashi Kazuki.

The bells tinkled as a customer walked in.

The young man behind the counter felt the wind from outside and looked up. He smiled. “Good afternoon, how can I help you?”

There came a sound of shuffling feet and ruffling of clothes, coming closer to the counter. Yuugi—the young man behind the counter—was subjected to a small smile; it was timid, and with it came the underlying feeling of tiredness. “I think I want to look around first.” Even the voice was soft. A bite of the lower lip, another hesitant smile, and a hand tugged at hair to attempt to pull out the confidence. It wasn’t very successful though.

“All right, no problem,” Yuugi said patiently. “Take your time. If you need assistance, don’t hesitate to ask, okay?” After seeing a relieved nod, he turned back to his previous work: sorting ginseng into their respective trays.

The customer looked around; there were glass jars and more glass jars on multiple shelves, lining up the walls of the small store, exuding the scents of various herbs. It wasn’t…unpleasant, per se, but it would certainly cause noses to scrunch up and questions to arise.

It just took time to get used to it.

“Excuse me, mister?”

“Yes?” Yuugi looked up once more from the mass of ginger-coloured ginseng and smiled politely.

“Uh, well, you see…” A pause. “My daddy, he’s…” Why was this so difficult to say? But the employee—or manager, the customer couldn’t figure out, why wasn’t there anyone else in the store?—didn’t seem to mind; he just sat patiently, waiting for her to calm down, and waiting to see how he could help.

“Are there any foods that can help sick people?” _There._

Yuugi didn’t even seem fazed by the sudden abruptness. Instead, the smile just lingered—although the customer did notice that it somehow seemed _sadder_ —and Yuugi asked back, “Well, that would depend on why he or she is sick.”

“My daddy…he has, uh, stomach cancer.”

He clucked his tongue in sympathy. There weren’t any words, because they were the usual condolences, “I’m sorry,” “I’m sorry to hear that,” and so on, but the customer, oddly enough, understood and appreciated the fact that this manager-employee didn’t bother.

“How should I put this? …there aren’t any particular foods that can help cancer patients…cancer can only be treated medically, and while eating healthily can help you maintain a good body, I’m afraid it doesn’t help much with fighting out the cancer…”

“But I want to help daddy!”

Yuugi smiled again, a little painfully. “I’m sure you do. But there’s very little as to what we can do against those viruses…”

The customer had tears and they wasted no time in falling down cheeks. “But shouldn’t the grown-ups know what to do? They always have a solution to everything! _Always!_ ”

“Umeta!”

A woman came into the store, panting; the bells tinkled madly with the force that opened the door.

“Mommy, mommy!”

“You naughty girl, you shouldn’t have just wandered off like that.”

“I’m sorry, mommy…”

“Here, you dropped one of your mittens outside.” The woman straightened up even when her daughter kept clinging to her legs. “I’m terribly sorry if she has been a bother.”

“It was nothing, she wasn’t bothersome at all. She’s a bright child; very persistent.” His eyes twinkled as the child stopped crying and looked over at him. She sniffed.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to go now,” the woman said hastily. “I just got a call from the hospital…”

“What happened? Is it daddy?” Fear was clear in both her eyes and voice.

Her mother crouched down and gave her a tight hug. “Yes… they said daddy’s treatment went very well and he’s passed the critical stage. The cancer’s not spreading and he’ll be okay. He just needs to stay in the hospital for a few more days until the doctor says he’s all right to go.”

A smile slowly spread on the little girl’s face and hugged her mother even more tightly. “That’s great, mommy!”

They both stood up and turned to the shopkeeper. “I’m sorry we’re idling—”

“Did they use lentinan?” Yuugi whispered. 

“I’m sorry?”

“Did the doctors say what they used in the treatment? In the papers you had to sign to agree to the treatment? Anywhere?”

“Well, yes—”

“Was it lentinan?”

The woman nodded, growing a little frightened at the change in behaviour. She tugged at her daughter’s hand, but she seemed rooted to the ground. “I’m sorry, but we really have to go now—”

The bells tinkled for the third time in thirteen minutes.

Yuugi propped his head up with both his hands, letting out a frustrated sigh. He’d knew it all along; even proposed it in their faces and thought with all the medical knowledge they possessed they could see where he came from, but no, they had simply brushed him off and proceeded with a different treatment, a treatment that didn’t help in any way, and instead made everything so sickeningly worse.

They had called him crazy, called his ideas far-fetched, and now look, look… His vision blurred for a slight moment before they sharpened. They used his ideas, just six years after he had proposed it, and he, he…

His ideas were helping other people, and that was good; he tried to convince himself but the pain was there, reminding him that his ideas weren’t accepted soon enough, and if he had done more to persuade them into using it, they could’ve saved his life—

But no…

He’d lost his soul-mate to the virus before he got the chance to help him fight back…

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written/posted on August 26, 2007.
> 
> "Lentinus edodes. A dark oriental mushroom widely used as a food. Several anticancer substances have been found in shiitake mushrooms, including lentinan, which has been studied in Japan as a treatment for stomach and colorectal cancer." –- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, found in the Dictionary of Medical Terms


End file.
